The heavy oak doors seal shut with a deafening thud, locking out the world and trapping the thick, suffocating steam inside the bathhouse.

​He didn't give her a single second to draw a breath.

​Before she can wipe the wet hair from her face, his hands locked onto her waist like iron bands, hauling her effortlessly out of the water.

Her back slammed hard against the slick, cold tiles of the bath wall. The contrast was cruel...the scalding pool swirling around her thighs while the freezing stone bites into her spine, pinned beneath the massive, dripping frame of the warlord king.

​Steam rises between them, but his pitch-black eyes burn right through it.

He looked entirely unhinged, like a man who has died a thousand times just to starve for this exact moment.

​She winced at the cold stone, her fists coming up to press violently against his bare, soaking chest, nails digging into his wet skin, but she refuses to bow.

​"You really enjoy putting on a sickening performance, don't you? Your Majesty," she rasps, her breath ragged against his skin. "Dragging your captive Queen into the bath like a prize."

"If you're so starved, go bring those pathetic concubines back in. Bed every noblewoman in this wretched empire for all I care.I don't give a single damn what you do with your nights."

​His jaw flexed, a dark, dangerous smirk twisting his lips. He didn't pull back... Instead he stepped closer, sinking his weight into her until there wasn't a hair's breadth of air left between their bodies.

​His large, calloused hand tracks up her wet ribs, fingers bruising as they wrap fully around her throat, not to choke her, but to feel the erratic, frantic rabbit-thump of her pulse against his palm.

He tilts her head back against the stone, forcing her to look into the abyss of his eyes.

​"Any woman?" the gravelly rumble vibrating deep in his chest and sliding like poison straight down her spine. His hot, ragged breath hit her parted lips. "Why would I settle for any woman...when I have my queen in my arms , utterly exposed beneath this moonlight?"

"I can consume you right here , against this stone!"

"Do not speak to me like that ,your majesty..... "

"And do not mistake me for your pathetic concubines, who have no identity of their own apart from being your entertainers !"she spat.

"Those women were the court's playthings under the previous emperor," A low, unhinged chuckle rumbles deep within his chest, his dark eyes glinting with amusement. "You think I give a damn about them?"

"I don't care," she snaps back, trying to push against his chest.

Instead of letting her retreat, he violently pulled her flush against him, crushing her body to his until the beat of his wild heart echoed through her bones.

"You should..." he murmurs, the deep rumble vibrating through her chest like dark magic.

She spits, her chest heaving as her nails dig into his wet shoulders. "And you hold the same title now. Does that change anything? You sit on a bloody throne and keep a harem of desperate women at your beck and call. You are no different than the tyrant who came before you!"

​His jaw hardened, the faint trace of dark amusement vanishing instantly from his features.

The comparison to the late, corrupt monarch sparks a dangerous, volatile flame in his eyes.

But instead of snapping back, his expression settled into something far more lethal-a quiet, unhinged intensity that made the air in the bathhouse grow suffocatingly thin.

​He leaned down, his mouth brushing against the shell of her ear as his hand grips her thigh tighter, hauling her even higher against the cold tile.

​"You compare me to that dead dog?" he rasps, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying growl. "He held titles. He collected women like trinkets to hide his cowardice."

"I took this crown with my bare hands, wild cat-and the only reason those women still draw breath in this palace is because I haven't bothered to sweep out the trash yet!"

​His thumb pressed firm into her hip, his dark gaze dropping to her trembling, parted lips.

​"Do not ever compare me to him," he whispers against her skin, the heat of his breath searing her neck. "He wanted silent, obedient dolls....but I?"

High above, silver light pierces through the open skylight, hitting the water and igniting the unseen, ancient mark sleeping in their veins.

​"I may have destroyed this kingdom and won you with the throne" he rasps, his mouth brushing the shell of her ear as his other hand slides up her bare thigh, gripping her leg and hitching it up around his hip.

"I may want you-clawing at my chest, spitting venom, and burning in my bed until you remember who truly owns your soul.....But I'm a man of my words!"

"I will not do anything against your will....still-"

"If you don't stop running that pretty, sarcastic mouth, wild cat....I’ll use mine to shut you up and I'll make sure the only sound coming out of your mouth is my name."

★★★